Domenico Gentile Biography
Domenico Gentile (1933 - 2017) was born in Salerno in 1933. However, he chose Asola, in the province of Mantua, to live. Here he first worked as a doctor, then also became an artist. Initially he approaches neorealism, the tireless search for a painting different from abstract decadentism and the ideas of the informals, sharing the visions of his high priests Guttuso, Vespignani, Purificazione, Zancanaro. From the colorful landscapes of the 1960s, Gentile will arrive at a sort of disintegration of representation, in favor of almost abstract geometries, having as their theme factories, construction sites, warehouses of clearly Sironian taste. A poetics in constant balance between realism and abstraction, which will continue until the 1980s, when the artist will begin a new, more playful, ironic, conceptual cycle, based on the interaction of commonly used objects (bolts, books, boxes , coins, cigarettes, ice cream cones, mushrooms, scrap) to represent a colorful human race, made up of individuals who are only apparently the same, in reality diversified by never repetitive color combinations. Then, in the 90s, the playful component becomes evident and the subjects of the paintings appear haunted and restless. In recent years, Gentile's objects/characters have freed themselves from the embrace of the multifaceted mass, seeking a more autonomous space, a more intimate language, an inner vibration.
